


frost

by annavalentina



Category: Heart no Kuni no Alice | Alice in the Country of Hearts
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29945919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annavalentina/pseuds/annavalentina
Summary: [ARCHIVE] The transient winter will pass through soon enough.
Relationships: Alice Liddell/Julius Monrey





	frost

**Author's Note:**

> I ship it kind of a lot.

Alice perched on the edge of his desk, bracing her heels against a drawer handle, and watched the snow drift past the window.

"It's so cold."

"Snow," Julius said flatly, not raising his eyes from the minuscule cogs and gears he manipulated, "often is."

"Don't be a spoilsport." She carefully removed a miniature screw from the corner of her skirt and placed it back in its appropriate pile. She could identify it at a glance, now. "It's just so strange."

"The weather?"

"The way it changes." His hands moved so gracefully, so steadily. She watched them, feeling her heart swell and press against her ribcage, and said softly, "it's a little scary."

He paused, and looked up at her, faintly surprised. "Scary?"

"Just..." She looked at the glass again. "As soon as something forms, it's gone again. I bet it won't be here long enough for a snowman, or a snowball fight, or snow angels..."

Julius closed his eyes as though pained. "Don't give them ideas."

"Oh - no, a snowball fight is just..." She trailed off, winced. "They'd find a way to make it lethal, wouldn't they?"

Neither of them needed to say what 'they' was referred to. Honestly, there was no specificity. Sometimes Alice thought that Julius was the only one in the Country of Hearts - besides maybe Boris - that understood the way she felt about the clocks, and their significance, and what was so wrong about what happened to them.

She swallowed hard. "Well, a snowman would have been nice anyway," she said, mustering up a half smile. She looked up at the window. "Julius?"

"Yes?" His voice was quiet.

"Sometimes I wish I could show you..." She trailed off. _My home. A place where hearts beat. A place where lives aren't tossed aside like toys. Where the seasons come and go, and there's..._ "I wish you could meet my sister," she said, coming abruptly to a halt. "I think you'd like her."

His hands had gone completely still on the pieces; only now did they resume their motion. "I have a duty," he said. She thought he was only half talking to her. "I am..." He sat back, pulled his spectacles off and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I am sure I would have," he said. "You loved her."

"Love her," she said, and the words came out too sharp, defensive. "I mean...yes." She wrapped her arms around herself and smiled. "I loved her more than anything else in the world. Love," she corrected herself, startled. "I love..." She stopped. Sighed.

"Am I ever going to get home?" She whispered.

Julius replaced his spectacles with a steady hand and looked back to his work. "In time the bottle will fill," he said.

"I miss her so much," she whispered. Her heart twisted in her chest, and she sucked in a quick, unsteady breath. "I wish..."

A tinkle. Julius tensed beside her; when she looked down and saw scattered parts, she thought a different man would have cursed, and viciously. "I'm sorry, did I...?"

"No," he said wearily. "It was my fault." He gathered up the parts again, neatly sorting them with his long, clever fingers, quick motions of his hands that seemed almost absent minded in their effortless coordination.

"Julius?"

He kept his eyes on the pieces. "Yes?"

"I'd miss you, too," she said, her throat aching. "If I had to go."

He closed his eyes briefly. After a moment he said, "it may be better. That you return to your world." His voice roughened, grew even softer. "Perhaps you'd be happier there."

Alice pressed her hands between her knees, watching the rebuilding clock rather than his face. Finally, she said, "but I haven't gotten one hundred percent yet."

His eyes flashed to her face.

"I have to get one hundred percent," she said, and smiled helplessly. "Before I go."

She saw the smile at the corners of his mouth in return, rueful and small. He bent his head once more to his work, and Alice watched the snow fall, and determinedly thought about nothing more yearning than the next cup of coffee, or a warmer pair of socks from the village.


End file.
